


Worth a thousand words

by orphan_account



Category: Formula E RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Multi, and André/Jev/Lorene, and more about André/Instagram/Regret, but this is really less about who he may or may not have once been sleeping with, what a threeway am I right lads, with mentions of André/Takako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 04:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He misses Tokyo. He’s not going to get sad about it; it’s been a week for losses and like everything else in his life, while sad, it’s sad... after the fact. Nowhere to move but on. André doesn’t like that he’s still in the process of adjusting for it, just like he doesn’t like his mixed feelings regarding his homecoming to Porsche, but age has made him a conflicted man. It’s a good thing he’s really great at rudely distracting himself.--André yeets himself halfway across the globe, but Instagram keeps him closer than he'd like to the problems he's aiming to forget.





	Worth a thousand words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [singlemalter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlemalter/gifts).

> I am extremely proud I used yeet correctly in a story summary; ANYWAY! This is odd and grimly full of feelings best left not talked about, but that's why I feel compelled to write it I suppose. Thank you for allowing me a chance to exercise my atrophied writing chops, though, and in the end, hope there's something here for you to like! Happy off-season my dude.

André is doing his level-best not to think about work in any capacity as the plane bumps through its landing on the Narita tarmac.

His eyes are still closed, and with every breath he takes, he channels his energy into getting his shoulders to relax further into the memory foam pillow JAL have started handing out for long-haul first class -- they’re really quite exceptionally comfortable. The rumble of the taxiing reminds him a bit of the rocking and rolling of the Eurostar, and when André does finally blink open his eyes to look out to his right and take in the home-not-home landscape of the Kantō plains, there's a sudden and sharp shot of regret running through-and-through his chest. The pang of homesickness is overwhelming enough he actually isn’t thinking about Jev, or the constructor’s championship, or his failed season, or even the bristling undertone of hostility coating his necessary but apparently resented presence at the Awards Gala in Soho last night (if the way Carl made sure Carl was between him and Jev at all times was any indication). He wonders if Takako is near her phone and pulls his out to type out _tadaima ^^_ before he does anything else, his mobile's roaming still adjusting, to give himself something to do that isn’t moping about.

He misses Tokyo. He’s not going to get sad about it; it’s been a week for losses and like everything else in his life, while sad, it’s sad... after the fact. Nowhere to move but on. André doesn’t like that he’s still in the process of adjusting for it, just like he doesn’t like his mixed feelings regarding his homecoming to Porsche, but age has made him a conflicted man. It’s a good thing he’s really great at rudely distracting himself. Anyway, the whole point of this week in Tokyo and the blunt immediacy of his departure was actually not to think about motorsport at all (except for the announcement he’s contractually obligated to make in the next 72 hours) which he’s already doing a summarily shit job of, so if he’s vaguely aggressive with dismissing his Twitter and Instagram notifications, he can hardly be blamed. Not for the first time, he makes a mental note that he really should hire someone to do his social for him. He doesn’t use any of the apps enough to be successful at it anyway, and it would give him one less thing to worry about commercializing. He’s spent too long in places where being cheeky and lovably obnoxious were enough to make people root for him, he doesn’t really have the skillset to make himself politely likable and being honest, can’t be bothered to try to build said skillet up at this stage in his life.

André's plane makes it to the gate, and he begins to gather himself -- unbuckling his lap belt and starting to collect and repack the items he’s removed midflight from his small hand luggage -- before he fucks it up entirely and checks Instagram on autopilot. Jetlag is what he’ll blame it on later, surely, but he’s scrolling mindlessly through the algorithm’s first few choices for stories when he clicks on Lorene’s icon haloed in pink by force of habit and absolutely nothing else and stops still in his one-handed coiling of his tablet charging cable.

It’s a two-minute-old post of Jev, of him sprawled on his sectional -- shirt carelessly unbuttoned and half yanked off his frame -- interrupted in his (and Lorene’s by implication) activities by his uselessly annoying cat which he’s holding gently above and over his lap. André’s eyes trace the line of Jean-Eric’s chest hair down to the too-familiar whorl just under his belly button, saliva flooding his mouth in a way that forces him to reflexively swallow. It’s a startlingly intimate photo. Christ, he _actually_ might be blushing, which is infuriating even as he continues to stare helplessly at the picture as the twenty-second timer runs itself out.

He’s still staring at the image when his text notification like a chastising school marm drops down over the top of it with Takako’s reply: _お帰り_ and a heart emoji and he turns the screen off, the heat flooding his neck and ears eliminating any lingering doubts about what color his face might be. He lets his eyes close and pinches the bridge of his nose.

It’s fine -- he’s been fucking Jev and Lorene both for more than a year combined, there will be slip-ups while he readjusts his operating paradigm. André sighs, opens his eyes, pockets the phone, and makes his way off the plane.

\--

André slips up again with it while waiting in line for an airport taxi in the muggy Japanese afternoon. Shivraj sends him a DM, and for some inexplicable reason given how much he hates notifications, he hasn’t turned them off for his photos account, so there's a chiming noise, and a drop down, and after a brief pause he opens up Insta. André switches over to his other profile and reads what Shiv sent him -- a photo essay on street merchants in the offshore villages of Thailand which is actually gorgeous and distracting in the best of ways, photo after photo full of lush lighting and half-smiles.

He fills out his destination card absentmindedly and hands it over to the taxi limousine dispatcher with a polite nod, and then goes back to his phone. André’s fairly good about keeping only people who’s aesthetics are interesting to him friended on this handle to better curate his experience while browsing on his Leica-centric account -- other photographers or interior designers -- but there are a few people who’ve slipped through for one reason or another, and he actually --

“Oh _fuck_, come on --” doesn’t realize what he’s done until he’s already two seconds into the same picture. He gets a sharp look from the woman behind him, mutters out a half-hearted _daijoubu sumimasen_ before slipping into the next taxi that pulls up to the curb.

The flurry of activity puts him three stories later into his timeline as he settles in, puts his seatbelt on, and adjusts himself for the forty minute ride, and he stares at his phone a moment. André knows full well what he _wants_ to do and debates if at this point there’s really any shame in it regardless of what he understands is probably best for him if he doesn’t want to let the past two years linger unpleasantly.

He taps the left side of his screen until the app back-pedals enough for him to be back on the picture Lorene posted and then presses his thumb gently to the middle of the screen to keep it there, regardless of the timer. Does Instagram tell the user if their followers screenshot pictures? André can’t remember in that minute, and wonders if Lorene would care if he did. If Jev would, if she chooses to tell Jev he had.

“Is music ok?” asks the cabby, dragging André out of his thoughts.

“Sure, of course,” André replies nodding.

The man fumbles with the knobs on the preset buttons of the car stereo and disco music slowly escalates from a barely there murmur to a pleasant volume, the sultry tones of Gloria Gaynor wailing _there’s a very strange vibration piercing me to the core_. André has no clue what’s on his face, but the driver smiles knowingly before calling back to André:

”The Jackson Five version, not original -- this one much better.”

”_Never Can Say Goodbye_ is a great song,” André agrees, and then decides he will take the screenshot, even if Lorene is watching the metrics. It seems a bit aggressively sad of him, but so does Jev’s girlfriend posting soft-core porn of him ten minutes after André's plane was scheduled to land.

If that intent is entirely in André’s head, a fabrication of the abrupt end to the bizarre intimacy of their partnership, André's fine with it -- he likes the fantasy of being missed even if he doesn’t particularly reciprocate the sentiment at the moment. He’s in a better mood than he’s been in for weeks, he realizes suddenly; the off-season suddenly arrived now in the space of four measures of an old boogie standard. His phone vibrates, and he looks down -- Takako’s sent him a short video of an _ikayaki_ stand basting grilled and shriveling skewers on what looks like the plaza of the Den-en-chōfu train station; she must’ve spent the night at her parents’. The audible sizzling evokes the sense that he’ll be able to smell the sweetness of the sauce and roasting squid if he were to only roll down the window despite still being on the early stretch of the Higashi-Kantō between the airport and his intended destination. _You’ll spoil your appetite_ he writes back, tempted briefly to use the mad face emoji; he fucking hates them, but she finds them cute and he likes amusing her in a way he’s never bothered to properly examine. _It’s just an appetizer! Meet you au restaurant?_ and sends a destination pin shortly after with a cheeky _no peeking!!_ meaning she doesn’t want him to look up the address to find out which eatery she’s gotten them reservations for. It’s not one he immediately recognizes by address either, so he is actually quite tempted to do just that, but _Ok, no peeking I promise_ and does add an angel emoji to that one before hitting send for good measure.

His phone vibrates again with a message notification, but it’s not her number -- one instead with a +33 1 prefix; Paris, then. André’s finger twitches over the unlock pad, but “no peeking” is as good an ethos to start of his vacation with as any other, and he doesn’t want his mood for his homecoming to Takako to be spoiled by the surprise.

**Author's Note:**

> A placeholder for when I'm finally able to link an upload of a screenshot of the exact story that launched a thousand regrets. Edit: [here u go folks](https://bit.ly/2GYnaDj)


End file.
